Sharon Hodde Miller > Quotes

“A critical spirit is an easy entry point for sin to sow seeds of division.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, Free of Me: Why Life Is Better When It's Not about You

“Loving Father, my focus is fickle. It drifts away from you again and again, no matter how hard I try. I want to live for you, and I want to keep my eyes on you, but I cannot do it without you. I ask for your mercy and your grace. I ask for your Holy Spirit to stand in the gaps. Help me to fix my eyes on you, and thank you for your promise to do it. Amen.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, Free of Me: Why Life Is Better When It's Not about You

“The purpose of family is to love God and others. The purpose of marriage is to love God and others. The purpose of parenting is to love God and others. That’s the answer to the question.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, Free of Me: Why Life Is Better When It's Not about You

“One of the best ways to face this problem of self-centeredness is to discover some cause and some purpose, some loyalty outside of yourself and give yourself to that something.1 —Martin Luther King Jr.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, Free of Me: Why Life Is Better When It's Not about You

“For Christians, power is a person. Jesus Christ. This means our own power is found not in force, but in our intimacy with our Savior and our likeness to him.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises

“the lie that any gap in our knowledge, any boundary on our power, or any limitation on our choice is something to fear, challenge, and resist. It’s a deception that Adam and Eve fell for, and we are still falling for it today. Instead of entrusting ourselves to God’s goodness, we believe our own control will serve us better.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises

“But I believe the antidote to consumerism in the church is the same antidote to consumerism in marriage. We commit to both for the long haul, not because they ultimately make us happy, but because they make us holy.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, Free of Me: Why Life Is Better When It's Not about You

“When it is not good enough to BE good, and we want people to also THINK we are good, then we are likely to protect our reputations in destructive ways.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises - Library Edition

“pandemic robbed us of certainty and predictability, it laid bare an idol that had been strangling us, invisibly, for years. Why is our culture chronically anxious? One major factor is our relationship with control.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises

“The truth is, every time we face the urge to control, we are presented with a choice: Will we trust God or ourselves? This question is at the heart of our faith. If faith is believing in what we cannot see, control is the opposite. It is choosing to trust what we can see–namely, our own power, knowledge, and intentions.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises

“We are relying on information to do the heavy lifting of communication and transformation when God never meant for it to. As Matthew 13 reminds us, our time and energy are better spent discerning and interceding for the state of the soil in prayer.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises

“A Prayer of Confession Good Father, I confess to you the oldest sin of humankind: using knowledge to control. I confess my desire to know the future, rather than entrust the future to you. I confess that I run to information for refuge, instead of running to you. I confess to using knowledge to coerce or manipulate others, instead of praying and bringing the matter to you. Thank you for the gift of knowledge—that we can know and learn—but restore me to a right relationship with it. You alone are God, and there is no other who can make my feet steady and secure like you. Amen.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” Jesus, the bread of life, invites us to embody his generosity. What we have is not ours but belongs to a much bigger story.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, Free of Me: Why Life Is Better When It's Not about You

“Instead of entrusting ourselves to God’s goodness, we believe our own control will serve us better.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises

“... our standard of good and our prerequisite for joy must not be a body without limitations. If we cannot have contentment without the absence of limitations, then we will never be content. Life will inevitably weaken our physical capacity in one way or another, which is why our joy cannot depend on "fixing" our bodies, whatever "fixing" means to each of us. While it is good to take care of our bodies, love our bodies, and glorify God with our bodies, our satisfaction cannot depend on our ability to control them. As long as it does, our bodies will control our joy and contentment in life, which means they will also control us.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises

“Here Paul is urging the Corinthians to honor and care for their bodies, not for the sake of making them good, but because they already are good.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises

“One of the reasons Christians get enmeshed in worldly affairs is that we think we can use the tools of the world, as long as we use them “differently.” We want to use wealth, but “differently.” We want to use anger, but “differently.” We want to use power, but “differently.” We brand these approaches as “redemptive” or “Christian,” but Jesus displayed no interest in attaining worldly power. Jesus could have become a king and done a lot of good. He could have amassed tremendous wealth and done a lot of good. He could have imposed his will on the world and done a lot of good. But that is not what Jesus did. Instead of exercising worldly power “for good,” he surrendered his power. In doing so, he completely redefined what power is.”
― Sharon Hodde Miller, The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises